So we celebrate. The possibility that there may be life on Mars. Not sure whether we are more afraid that there may be other life forms out there that are far more evolved than us, or more afraid that we are the only ones around….
… But don’t you sometimes consider how arrogant our search for life on other planets is ?
For we define life as a likeness of ourselves. Water, oxygen, nitrogen, amino acids, nervous system etc. But more so than anything else, an INDIVIDUAL life form. As if no life exists without individuality.
How would we describe life ? An intelligent system of course. But why must it be induvidual, why must it be contained in a human ? or even a single cell ? Even a human being is actually nothing but an ecosystem that we, through our reductive and rather unimaginative perception see as an individual.
So is not our whole universe in that sense life ? An intelligent eco system that is as chaotic as a single individual ? And why are we searching for copies of ourselves ?
We may at this moment be surrounded by life that bears absolutely no relationship to the limited perceptions of our selves. So we will not even recognize the presence of that life .
Must life have a physical form ? Can there not be intelligent ecosystems that are completely formless ? That are just patterns of energy. Of thought. According to Mystics and Quantum Scientists, that is exactly what we are anyway.
So lets look for life around us, within us, even at this moment, without letting go of the exciting anticipation of finding of green eyed, scaly, warm hearted clones of ourselves.
Shekhar
Dude…
Scientist are losing their nerves!…the recent news is that a scientist from some high-fi American lab(i saw him on Discovery channel) is busy creating a parallel universe in his basement. and he is claiming he is close to complete his experiment.
Astrophysicists have some theory which they call M-theory. it says that the whole universe is nothing but a membrane and they don’t know what it is? they just called it MAGICAL MEMBRANE hence the name M MEMBRANE. OOPS>>>
now these people will develop more precise and powerful telescopes and then some multinational will do the reverse engineering and will come out with more powerful digital cameras and then some other multinational will fit that camera into a mobile phone…and then thousands of people will develop softwares for it to work properly along with internet and then other bunch of software developers will work on the pro grammes to work out the billing cycles of millions of users. in the process all will feel they are WORKING hard for the betterment of their life and in turn their nation and in turn the whole humanity. and then they will go to flashy restaurants or pubs or discos on weekends or will buy or rent film DVDs and will have fun talking about any subject they like and then crash down and on MONday again some new technology will arise from scientist’s lab and every one will start running…running…running…no where to go…running and running and running.
in general this is what happens with most of the other streams too. there are many sub stages to this process but over all this is what is happening! Scary!…
i think Kafka has captured this FEELING beautifully in TRIAL. The Trail goes on. For what!?!. Who dares to ask!?! there is REAL in SURREAL!
take care…lots of love…tata…kedar…
PS: Your last para is beautiful, that is what every one needs now!
‘Lets look for life around us, WITHIN US!’
One of my favourite (ever) films is “Forbidden Planet” – which, ostensibly, is about space travel and if you like, the search for “life”…ironically the life they find is actually so advanced that it has done away with physical limitations (“instrumentality”, in the film) and become like “nature” itself – the only issue being left, after travelling half way across the universe, are mans own inner demons and perhaps, his own alienation resulting from a sense of “individuality”…
Brilliant…even if it is wrapped up in a “kids” film….
Dear Shekhar
Sometimes you post a blog that’s perfect in its expression of something important and truthful. When I read such a blog, I can’t write anything, though I often have many thoughts on the subject you posted on. This is because what you wrote is so good it seems stupid to even try to comment about it. This blog made me mute like that. I’m literally forcing myself to say something now, and having a rough time forming even these unrelated sentences. A great post.
love, Heath
Hi Shekhar, why is it that the alien life forms we imagine or portray in our movies are always so much uglier than us? Can we ever imagine or paint, draw an alien life form more beautiful than the human form? If we cannot, what does that tell us about ourselves?
Hey Shekhar,
Sorry my comment on this page has got nothing to do with water on mars!- since your contact link does not seem to work i thought i’d drop a note here-
I’m a conceptual designer for films from San francisco- I happened to stumble upon 1 of your comic books titled “devi” and was completely blown away from the art work i saw there-wow, we have talented artists in india- look forward to working with them sometime in the future.
please do convey my complements to all the talented artists at virgin!
cheers~
s
Shekhar,
Isnt that the search for the unknown that makes our homosapiens species distinct and it’s this search (discoveries) that has taken technology to a new level.Belief and hope is what make ones life cycle interesting.People believe in God and hope he exists in physical form…which is impossible…but there were some who believed man can go to space…humans can be cloned… Well scientists believe that there is a possibility that lifeform could have existed in MARS and hope to find it one day.And if you ask what i believe….. i believe and hope that atleast this time Martin Scorsese wins the best director award at the Oscars 2007.
Sree, I agree. I think human endevour and scientific research is great, and my own greatest ambition was to be an astronaut. I was just making a point about our search for intelligence other than ourselves, and my belief that our search has become limited by the looking for clones of ourselves or near enough to that.
Creative intelligence pervades the eco system of the universe. It is just that science needs to be able to define everything. And we know that the very universe we live in is infinite and undefinable by current scientific thinking. Of course when the Quantum physicists are theorizing about the possibility of ‘no space’ and ‘no time. Maybe then we will widen our search ? shekhar
HI XYZ…
if we will imagine better or say more beautiful (physically) alien form, slowly we will evolve into them physically….hehehehe….Darwin was not completely wrong after all!…! π =))!
Hi dude…
What is happening on your comic book series front?
Devi/Snakewoman! amazing art work!
But why mythology again?
The excitement about water on Mars is the excitement about the possibility that whatever life there might be in that planet resembles ours to the extent that it requires water and to that extent, that form of life becomes comprehensible.
Our search for life on other planet arrogant? More than arrogance, it is that tendency of human perception to manage the unknown in known terms. Ultimately, when/if we do discover some form of life, our understanding of that form will be a discourse – a description of the starnge in out terms, removed from the empirical reality, and perhaps, missing out the essence/the crux.
Does the universe end where and when it begins? Beginingless and endless cannot encompass expanse. Just a thought.
Hi Kedar, yes, something more beautiful than the human form will certainly be evolutionary. I was just wondering if there are absolute attributes in our reality. Can we imagine a new color which is not VIBGYOR or any combination of them? Or a new sense besides known senses of taste, smell, sight, touch, hearing?
XYZ: …ever read H.P Lovecrafts’ “The Colour Out of Space” ?
Lovecrafts work expressed a deep sense of alienation from what he saw as a menacing and inscrutible cosmos – yes , there is rampant xenophobia – racism, even, and you can see(rather obviously) how he made parralels between Hindu concepts (hence “alien” seeming, to him…) of space , time, and possibly, deities, in his work…but his visions centre on ugliness and horror, rather than beauty and wonder.
Worth reading, all the same…
hi XYZ…
amazing thought of NEW COLOR and NEW SENSE!
we can !!! By exercising FREE WILL!!! YO!….
Every one is free to see his own color! π
(and now there is not going to be any physical evolution…this color of yours will be unique to you, no one else will be able to see it.)
Our President’s thoughts about the Telecom Systems.
>>>
http://www.ciol.com/content/news/2006/106121414.asp
Shekhar,
Why is that the search for Intelligent life forms or anything related to it attracts more attension than any other scientific researches?I can’t understand why NASA gets the full funding from the US Government to scan the surface of MARS for water and the same govt led by Bush vetoes embryonic stem – cell bill. This is what he said “This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect, so I vetoed it,” Can someone remind him the body counts in Iraq? Imagine what difference it would have made if the federal money would have come in for the scientific community. A cure for parkinson’s disease has been postponed.
From a practical point of view, we absolutely need to know explore abt life (the way we know it) outside earth.
For a biologist its not a philosophical search. Its a crucial information to form and test theory.
Understanding this gives very crucial information abt life (as we know here) on earth. It will be significant step in understanding ecology, geology and things like global warming, polar ice sheets and so on.
Hi Shekhar ,
It is all quite obvious that we have been misled by the space agencies – in some of the monochrome pictures i have seen of mars , there is more than what meets the eye.
there is no reason why mars should appear to have a red sky , with red sand – in short everything in red , simply because it appears red from the earth or the space. In three missions to mars – not one rover was able to last more than a week.
The last one- the Pathfinder failed due to a software bug , is what nasa wants us to believe. and when you read about Priority Inversion bug in the Embedded microprocessor , it makes me even more suspicious – the software designers are taking the flak for something they did not do.
I dont believe it at all , in short. That the nasa with its 3 tier code reviews would not look at such a possibility ( something we elctronics and software designers do even for as simple an application as a mobile phone ) , is baffling.
Basically, they dont want us to see what they know – the path finder was found to be fine by another probe , and then in one of the pcitures , there was a big shadow passing over he path finder when it landed – indicating another flying object close by.
Any guesses?
Cheers,
Rudra.